Woman agrees to allow her mother to leave hospital

Settling a two-month dispute, a Chicago woman agreed today to allow her mother to be discharged from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Under an agreement hammered out between attorneys for Chicago businesswoman Janet Bedin and the hospital, Dolores Bedin, 86, will leave the hospital on Friday.

"I don't like to be beaten down but I am," said an emotional Janet Bedin after a court hearing in Winnebago County, where her mother lives. "They wore us down and it's not right that it happened."

An attorney representing Northwestern would not comment on the case, and the judge ordered that details of the agreement be kept confidential.

The hospital had said in court documents that Bedin, who has inoperable pancreatic cancer, had been medically ready for release since Sept. 18. Her daughter disagreed.

In the petition, the hospital asked that a public guardian be appointed for Bedin, arguing that her daughter was not cooperating with the hospital's efforts to discharge her mother to a lower level of care and therefore not acting in her mother's best interests.

Adult children often struggle to arrange care for dependent parents, a problem made more difficult by gaps in insurance coverage related to non-acute care. Many seniors, including Dolores Bedin, lack long-term care insurance, and many lack adequate savings.

Janet Bedin, who juggles her family responsibilities with a job that involves travel, had worried that she was unable to adequately care for her frail, terminally ill mother at home.